Russia on Monday temporarily banned grain exports to ex-Soviet countries and most sugar exports, but a senior minister said it would keep on providing special export licences to traders within its current quota.

The United States warned China against providing military or financial help to Moscow after its invasion of Ukraine, as sanctions on Russian political and business leaders mounted and civilians sought to flee intense fighting on the ground.

The war in Ukraine is likely to be over by early May when Russia runs out of resources to attack its neighbour, Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser to the Ukrainian president's chief of staff, said late on Monday.

The Bangladesh embassy in Poland has been able to get two Bangladeshis freed from a “detention” centre in Ukraine. The two are now staying at the mission’s shelter centre in Poland.

Russia continued its bombardment of Ukrainian cities, with two person killed in airstrikes on a block of flats in the capital Kyiv yesterday, as the Kremlin said it may still opt to take control of large cities.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk today said he was challenging Russian President Vladimir Putin to a single combat over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, reports Business Insider.

India is exploring ways to avoid a major disruption in its supply of Russian-made weaponry amid US sanctions following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tightrope walk could become more difficult due to a continuing border standoff with China.

India is considering taking up a Russian offer to buy its crude oil and other commodities at discounted prices with payment via a rupee-rouble transaction, two Indian officials said, amid tough Western sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

Family members, relatives and neighbours were mourning as the body of Hadisur Rahman, third engineer of the Bangladeshi ship “Banglar Samriddhi”, who was killed in a rocket attack at a Ukraine port on March 3, reached home this noon.

Russian and Ukrainian negotiators held a new round of talks Monday as Russia’s military forces bombarded Kyiv and other cities across Ukraine with a punishing assault that the Red Cross said has created “nothing short of a nightmare” for the country’s civilians.

The body of Hadisur Rahman, third engineer of the Bangladeshi ship "Banglar Samriddhi", who was killed in a rocket attack at a Ukraine port on March 3, reached home this noon.

India is considering more than one alternative payment mechanism for its exporters if the war between Russia and Ukraine drags on for a long time and key trade sectors such as gems and jewellery face problems in international cash transfer, according to official sources.

Ukrainian officials negotiating with their Russian counterparts are to ensure direct talks between the countries' leaders that could lead to bringing peace, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said late on Sunday.

Russian air strikes hit a large Ukrainian base near the border with Nato member Poland yesterday, killing 35 people and wounding 134 a local official said, in an escalation of the war to the west of the country as intense fighting was reported elsewhere.

Russia has said it will treat arms shipments to Ukraine from Nato countries as “legitimate targets” for military action in a dangerous new escalation of tensions as the United States stepped up arms supply to Ukraine.

Egypt's Ali Farag, the world's number one squash player, used his victory speech at the Optasia Championship yesterday to express his dissatisfaction with Western media coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine last month, reports Indian news portal NDTV.

Waves of Russian missiles pounded a military training base near Ukraine’s western border with NATO member Poland, killing 35 people, Ukrainian authorities said Sunday. The strike followed Russian threats to target foreign weapon shipments that are helping Ukrainian fighters defend their country against Russia’s grinding assault.

A US journalist was shot dead and another wounded on Sunday in Irpin, a frontline northwest suburb of Kyiv, medics and witnesses told AFP.

India today announced its decision to temporarily relocate its embassy in Ukraine to Poland as the war between Russia and Ukraine intensified.

Russian Ambassador to Bangladesh Alexander V Mantytskiy has slammed a section of Bangladeshi media for what he called “biased approach” in their coverage of the situation in Ukraine and Russia’s actions there.